
^ 



HENRY THOREAU'S 
MOTHER 



HENRY THOREAU'S 
MOTHER 

NUMBER TWO 



LAKKLAND, MICHIGAN 
EDWIN B. HILL 

K;o8 






In e:^.cliLi* «?e 
Jffichigan \. 

30Ap'0« 



;<^'& 



ANENT SANBORN'S LIFE OF THOREAU. 

^piiE artless outburst of an indignant woman, herewith pre- 
seated, made its appearance in the Boston "Advertiser" 
of the date February 14, 1883, and was reprinted in the Con- 
cord "Freeman" for February 23 of the same year. 

The article gave universal satisfacliou in Concord, where both 
Thoreau and his biographer were well known. It is not known 
that the biographer made any reply.' There is a time when 
silence is indeed golden 1 



SAXIUJRX AS A MOURNER. 

The day after Thoreau's funeral the Concord '• .Monitor 
published the following sonnet : 

THOREAU. 

Hush the loud chant, ye birds, at eve and morn, 
And something plaintive let the robin sing : 

(rune is our Woodman, leaving us forlorn. 

And veiled with tears the merry face of Spring. 

Our woods and pastures he for other groves 
Forsakes, and wanders now by fairer streams ; 



4 HENRY THOKKAUS MOTHER. 

Yet not forgetful of his earthly loves, — 
Ah, no ! For so affe6lion fondly dreams. 

Dear One I 'T were shame to weep above thy grave. 
Or doubtingly thy soul's far flight pursue ; 

Peace and Delight must tliere await the brave, 
And Love attend the loving, wise, and true. 

Thy well-kept vows our broken aims shall mend, 

Oh as we think of thee, great-hearted friend. 

This wr.s published on the loth of May. And in the same 
magazine, two weeks later, appeared the following revision : 

HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 

'I'his soiiiiet, owing to the impossibili y of sending the proof to the author, 
was altered and marred in printing, In justice t© him and ourselves, we 
reprint ii. 

Hush th^ loud chant, ye birds, at eve and morn. 

And something plaintive let the I'obin sing; — 
ijou'^ is our Wgodman, leaving us forlorn, 

Touching with grief the glad aspecfl of Spring ; 
Your whispering alleys, he for other groves 

Forsakes, and wanders now by fairer streams, — 
Yet not forgetful of his earlier loves, — 

Ah, no ! for so aTfecflion fondly dreams. 
Thoreau ! 't were shame to weep above thy grave, 

Or doubtingly thy soul's far flight pursue! 
Peace and delight must there await the brave, 

And Love attend the loving, wise, and true. 
Thy well kept vows our broken aims shall mend, 

Oft as we think on thee, great- hearted friend. 

Concord. May 6, 1862. 



HENKY IHOKEAUS MOTHER. 5 

Was ever "copy" so "altered and marred"'? Was ever 
any one so credulous as he who believed the comp:)sitor "al- 
tered and marred " ? 

lUit, observe the date. Tlie very day upon which Thoreau 
died I Before he is cold in his cothn the poet-bio;^rapher is 
delivered of a sonnet I 

SANBORN AS A BIOCiRAPHER. 

It was twenty years later when the poet-l)iographcr essayed 
to write a biography of his departed friend. How he did it is 
shown in the indignant communication to the Boston "Adver- 
tiser." On which the reader will please make his or her own 
comments. 



HENRY THOREAU'S MOTHER. 

MR. SANBORN, in his book called "Henry I). 
Thoreau,' has seen fit to speak slightingly of 
Thoieau's mother and aunts. It seems particularly 
unmanly to do this now, so many years after their 
death, and when no near relative is left to defend their 
memory. Perhaps fur this reason he felt that he could 
do it with impunity. He has expended most of his 
injustice upon Henry Thoreau's mother. Such being 
the case, a few words from one who knew her well may 
not be inappropriate. As my excuse for troubling you 
with this communication, vou will perhaps allow me 
to quote a few paragraphs from Mr. Sanborn's book. 
Speaking of John Thoreau, Henry's father, Mr. Sanborn 
says: "John Thoreau led a plodding, unambitious, 
and respectable life in Concord village, educating his 
children, associating with his neighbors on those terms 
of equality for which Concord is famous, and keeping 
clear, in a great degree, of the quarrels, social and 



8 HENRY THOKEAU'S MOTHER. 

political, which agitated the village.'' 'I'his is well 
enough, but he takes occasion to add: "Mrs. Tho- 
reau, on the other hand, with her sister Louisa, and 
her sisters-in-law, Sarah, Maria, and jane Thoreau, 
took their share in the village bickerings" I I ! I fail 
to see how Mr. Sanborn can know this unless he took 
a i)retty active part in these same village bickerings 
himself; and if he does not write it of his own knowl- 
edge, he is surely writing gossip of a very. small and 
petty kind. Perhaps he thought it witty to speak of 
them altogether in this way. 

Dear "Aunt Maria," one of the sweetest, gentlest 
w(,)men that ever lived, and whose letter, written when 
she was eighty-four years of age, is the one good thing' 
in Mr. Sanborn's l)ook ! Me rewards her for it bv 
speaking of her as taking her "share in the village 
bickerings I " Jt was surely left for Mr. Sanborn to 
discover this. 

Few of us remember Louisa Dunbar or Sarah and 

' Smivj may take exception to ihc reinark that Miss Maria 
Tlioreau's letter is "the one goo;! thuig in Mr. Sanborn's hook." 
1 do not mean to imply that there are not other gootl things in 
the book,-- ])leasant anecdotes and the like. 1 am not criticis- 
ing the book from a literary 'point of view; but the letter seems 
to me the only thing which adds anything to our knowledge of 
Thoreau aiid his ancestry not obtainable elsewhere. 



HENRY THOREAU S MOTHER. 9 

Jane Thoreau well enough to speak of them from cur 
own knowledge, but those who do say that Mr. San- 
l^orn's allusion to them gives a very wrong impression, 
and is entirely without excuse. A lady who well re- 
members Louisa Dunbar and Jane Thoreau said to 
me: " I cannot conceive ofsucli a tiling being said in 
connedion with them. Why, we all loved them." But 
it is Henry Thoreau's mother whom Mr. Sanborn 
singles out as the special target for ill-natured criti- 
cism. I will quote again. After speaking of her 
brother, Charles Dunbar, Mr. Sanborn goes on in this 
strain: "Thoreau's mother had this same incessant 
and rather malicious liveliness that in Chafrles Dunbar 
took the grotesque form above hinted at. She was a 
kincily, shrewd woman, with traditions of gentility and 
sentinunis of generosity biii with sharp and sudden flash s 
of gossip ajid malice, ivhich never quite amounted to ill- 
nature [the italics are my own], but greatly provoked 
the grim and commonplace respect ability that she so 
often -came in contact with. Along with this humorous 
quality there went also an affecftionate earnestness in 
her relation with those who depended on her, that 
could not fail to be respeded by all who knew the 
hard conditions that New England life, even in a 
favored village like Concord, then imposed on the 
mother of a familv, where the outward circumstances 



TO HEXKV THOKEAUS MOTHER. 

were not in keeping with the inward aspiration.'' 
In another place he says of John Thoreau : "He was 
a small, deaf, and unobtrusive man, plainly clad, and 
'minding' his own business ;' very much in contrast with 
his wife, who was one of the most unceasing talkers ever 
seen in Concord. Her gift in speech was proverbial;"' 
and more follows of the same sort. It has not com- 
monly been su[)posed that ^Iv. Sanborn considered 
" minding one's business" the height of virtue. I have 
never before heard it intimated that Mrs. Thoreau 
fiiiled in that respect, and yet she was nof like a wo- 
man I once knew whose next door neighbor died, and 
had been buried two weeks before she knew that any- 
tliing unusual had taken place! Mrs. Thoreau was a 
good friend and kind neighbor, as many can testify. 

It is, perhaps, needless to remark that .Mr. .Sanborn's 
book has given great pain to the manv friends of tlie 
Thoreau family. But it is for this reason that I pro- 
pose to speak of a few things which Mr. Sanborn omits 
to speak of. and to enlarge a little upon some of which 
he does speak. 

I think the characteristics which chiefly impressed 
those of us who knew Mrs. Thoreau best, were the ac- 
tivity of her mind and the wideness of her symjiathy. 
The first quality Henry inherited. She was also an 
excellent mother and housewife. In the midst of i)ov- 



HKXRY THOREAIS MOTHER. II 

erly she brought U{) her children to all the amenities 
of life, and, if she had but a crust of bread lor dinner, 
would see that it was properly served. Mr. Sanborn 
says patronizingly, "she had sentiments of generosity." 
She certainly had, though I should scarcely have spoken 
of it in thai waw Year after year, on Christmas and 
Thanksgiving days, she invited to her table, not the 
rich who would return her hospitality, but her poorer 
neighbors from whom she could expect no return. 
She was never so {)Oor or so bus} that she did not fmd 
ways of helping those poorer than herself Such was 
her inliuence in this respect that it was felt bv all who 
came in contact with her, and one voung girl was 
heard to say, "When L grow up, I will do like Airs. 
Thoreau. 1 will give my gifts to those who need 
them, and I will invite to my table the poor rather 
than the rich, who are sure to ha\e plenty of invita- 
tions without mine. '" 

And yet she did not confine her hospitality to the 
j)oor; people of every kind and degree were welcomed 
under her roof 

Her efforts in the anti-slavery cause are well known. 
Slie was unsparing in her denunciation of the fugitive 
slave law, and was one of the first to give aid and com- 
fort to fugitives. Are these things what Mv. Sanborn 
means bv •'sentiments of generosity"'.^ When she 



12 HENRY THOKEAUS MOTHER. 

became interested iii a poor servant-girl, she placed 
money in the bank for her, and encouraged her to add 
little sums to it from time to time. And when she 
made her will, every dollar was disposed of conscien- 
tiously where she thought it would do the most good, 
and in no way merely for her own pleasure. It was 
no mere impulse which made her do these things, but 
a high and noble piincii)le. Idiere was no poor man 
or woman who came in contact with her to whom she 
did not do some good. 

She had her faults, as which of us has not.-* but her 
aim was high. She expressed liersclf frankl)' at all 
limes, and she sometimes told disagreeable truths; ])ev- 
haps she felt it a duty to do so. She had the courage 
of her convidions, and she certainly never hesitated to 
condemn a fault. It was done in all honesty to bring 
al)out a reform. She was nuich more likely to say 
severe things to peo})le than of them. I'his does not 
make a person popular. She was a great talker, and 
she occasionally said sharf) things ; but what was this 
in comparison with her virtues.-^ vShe was quick-witted 
and observing, and naturally had more to say than 
some of her neighbors. She was never guilty of mean 
and petty gossip. She was not uncharitable, and could 
readily forgive a fiult if she saw any signs of rejient- 
ance. On the whole, I think few women have done 



HKNRY THOREAUS MOTHER. - I3 

more good and less harm in the world than ]\Irs. 
Thoreau. 

That any biographer of Henr)- Thoreau should use 
his name as a center around which to weave a tissue 
of petty gossip about his mother and aunts would 
seem peculiarly ungracious ; but that this should be 
done by one calling himself his "friend" is a refine- 
ment of cruelty which has seldom been {)aralleled in 
literarv annals. 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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